The 72 mELakarthA rAgams under Venkatamakhi's nomenclature have been listed
here. These may not be considered as "mELakarthA" rAgams by some, since
some of the rAgams are not based on "sampUrna-sampUrna" scale. In other
cases, the two equivalent rAgams, have the same scale and are considered
"same".

The vagaries of having two systems

There are quite a few minor items of concern to us that there is more than
one system in vogue. There are rAgams which have the same name in the
two systems whose structures are different, while at the same time
there are rAgams with same structure but different names. The names used
by the Dikshitar school are also important to us, since
Muthuswami Dhikshitar has woven the names of the rAgams into most of his
compositions. You can read more about the specific rAgams in a separate
page titled Dhikshitar school rAgams.

Some examples:
(a). shanmuKapriyA is known as chAmaram in Dhikshitar
school. The mudrai "chAmaram" can be found in Muthuswami Dhikshitar's
song "Sidhdhi vinAyakam anisham".
(b). shudhDha sAvEri in the Dhikshitar school is a pure janyam of kanakAn'gi,
with svarams S R1 M1 P D1 S (this is called karnAtaka shudhDha sAvEri).
The common shudhDha sAvEri is considered a janyam of karaHarapriyA and takes
the svarams S R2 M1 P D2 S.

You can also listen to
RealAudio®
files of the mELakarthA rAgams on the internet.

The mELakarthA rAgams are grouped into the 12 chakrams, each containing
6 rAgams. Click on underlined rAgams to look up its associated
janya rAgams. You can
also click on any of the sampUrna
rAgams listed within parenthesis, to look up the sampUrna mELakarthA
rAgam's ArOHanam and avarOHanam.